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California, Calvin Coolidge, D/S/C Party, discrimination, equality, Gavin Newsom, Kurt Schlichter, liberty, Ronald Reagan, self-imagined elite, socialism
Imagine, gentle readers, your state has this law:
The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, pubic education, and public contracting.
Imagine further it was passed by an overwhelming majority of the state’s voters.
I know what you’re thinking: “Right. That’s the way things should be. That’s what the battle for civil rights was all about. That’s the promise of America, that every woman and man can succeed on their own determination and industry, and race, sex, color, ethnicity and national origin should have nothing to do with it. That’s what the Declaration and Constitution are designed to secure. What kind of idiot would disagree with that?”
Paul Mirengoff at Powerline tells us what kind of idiot would disagree:
Last week, I wrote about California’s Proposition 16. It’s an attempt to remove the ban on racial preferences from the state’s constitution. [skip]
Less controversial language is difficult to imagine in a nation, or a state, that hasn’t lost its way. Yet, Prop 16 has the support of governor Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, the entire state Democratic establishment, the teachers unions, Hollywood, and woke athletes.
You really didn’t have to guess very hard about that one, did you?
In addition, Prop 16’s backers enjoy a massive financial advantage over their opponents. I’m told they have a war chest of $12 million, 90 percent of which comes from contributions of $100,000 or more.
One individual, the wife of an African-American real estate developer, has contributed $3.5 million and lent the campaign an additional $2 million. Another, the wife of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, has kicked in $1 million. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan has given $1.5 million. Pacific Gas & Electric, which recently emerged from bankruptcy, has given $250,000.
The opposition to Prop 16 has nothing like this donor base. 70 percent of its money comes from donations of $1,000 or less.
I understand that some potential donors are sitting this one out due to fear of the “cancel culture.” Thus, the opposition relies even more heavily than I would have expected on small donations, including many from Chinese immigrants who don’t have a lot to give, but who want their children to grow up in a state that doesn’t discriminate against them.
The result of all of this is that Prop 16’s backers are outspending their opponents by a ratio of 10 to 1.
Men and women have lost their homes, their careers, their fortunes, even their lives, in the fight for equality, and the woke idiots of California want to wipe away what they sacrificed so much to attain? Why would they want to do that? They very much want to discriminate, primarily against white men, but ultimately, against any of their political enemies for any reason whatever. They want to abandon all of the liberties and values that make America the beacon of liberty, that they may create a socialist utopia. They’re so much smarter and more moral than everyone else, they’ll get it right where every other socialist in the past has failed while racking up an impressive body count.
In March of 2019, I wrote The Second Civil War, Part 4: Kurt Schlichter Fiction. At that time, Schlichter, a retired Army officer, attorney and writer had completed three novels: Peoples’ Republic, his first, followed by Indian Country and Wildfire. Since, Schlichter has published the fourth book in the series, Collapse.
D/S/Cs and Never Trumpers absolutely hate Schlichter, and his books, which is pretty much the best recommendation for them one might imagine. The series features Kelly Turnbull, former Army officer, who was shanghaied out of active duty to work special missions for the United States against the People’s Republic. America, you see, has split into two countries: the blue states, and the red states, which have their capital in Dallas, TX. The red states have retained the Constitution, but with several additions. No one votes without honorable military service, and laws regulating things like immigration are actually enforced. No one doubts the meaning of the Second Amendment, and no one dares try to disarm a law-abiding American. Elections are fair and cheating is severely punished. In other words, America without domestic enemies.
The People’s Republic, on the other hand, features all of the wonders of socialism. One’s pronouns are of utmost importance. There are no actual police, only a “People’s Security Force” made up of thugs and gangsters who prey on the population and have the power to rob, rape or murder at will. There is a People’s Bureau of Investigation, which is the real power, a combination FBI/CIA, mostly focused on keeping the population under control. They have a big job. There is no personal liberty, food is rationed, public services like garbage pickup, are reserved for the elite, people are issued “privilege” cards, only the elite have motor vehicles and gas is scarce and unaffordable. There is no religious liberty, and of course, no such thing as free speech. Informers are everywhere. For all but the elite, life is short, nasty and brutal. Guess which country is prospering?
Imagine the logical consequences of woke sensibilities overtaking American liberty, and that’s the reality of the world Schlichter has forecast. Schlichter is a fine novelist, and his stories are fast-paced and interesting. For those sick of elementary mistakes about firearms, the law, reality and tactics in novels, Schlichter’s works will be satisfying. He has the practical experience to eliminate virtually all such errors. The plausibility of the consequences of wokeness writ large make the world of his novels easy to accept, because for rational people, it’s easy to see how few steps beyond where we are today would be necessary to create that ugly world. Naturally, D/S/Cs and Never Trumpers hate them, because they reveal exactly what they want to do to America.
It is no coincidence that much of the action in the four novels—Indian Country, a prequel, being the exception—takes place in the former California.
This gentle readers, is why Joe Biden must be defeated. This is why wokeness, D/S/Cs, Never Trumpers and any fellow travelers must be chased back under the rocks from which they have slithered. It used to be said that California forecast the rest of the nation. Whatever innovations were birthed there were inevitably adopted by a grateful, far less sophisticated nation. But California has become the opposite of forward thinking. The state can’t even keep the lights on, and Americans are fleeing it as from a pestilence. They see the bold socialist future California’s self-imagined elite want, and they recognize it not as advancement, but as retrogression and degradation.
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, President Calvin Coolidge spoke at Philadelphia. An excerpt from his speech:
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
And so it is with today’s D/S/C Party. California, if anything, is the far left of that political movement, so one can look to them, and what they intend, as the inevitable agenda of that movement for the rest of America. How far have we fallen gentle readers, as a people, as human beings, that we would countenance rolling back the gains won in blood, sweat and toil by millions of Americans, men and women far better than the shriveled souls that would seek to deprive their fellows of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
By all means, read Schlichter’s books, and in the reading, be forewarned. And by all means, remember Ronald Reagan’s words:
Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.
As imperfect a vehicle as Donald Trump may be, can any rational, sane person imagine him pushing anything like Proposition 16? The choice of Americans—people who want to remain Americans—is clear this November 3rd.
Mike, driving home from Costco at 6PM tonight, this is what the sun looked like in Silicon Valley. IMG_1934.jpeg
The smoke is so bad, we had to turn on re-circulate in the car’s A/C.
I see the picture did not show, the sun was blood red. Yes, we in California are the elite of the country, except we can make our own power or breath our own air.
Too much smoke inhalation. We cannot make our own power. In the time of Regan, we had more nuclear plants than most of the country, now we’ve decommissioned them all.
Dear Phil:
It’s nearly enough to make one think they really want to destroy things.
This post made me think of a First Things article I came across yesterday in a link from a blogger I follow. Sobering parallels to the Russian revolution made by a professor from Northwestern U. The reference to the Thermidor period following the reign of terror (last paragraph) is worth a follow up look too.
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/10/suicide-of-the-liberals
Dear Old Barn:
Thanks for that link. They that will not learn from history…
If the USC football players are all sitting in the back seat, who is driving the car?
A cop.
Jesus could not have been born in California. They don’t have three wise men and a virgin.
What should you do if you find Gavin Newsom and Nancy Pelosi up to their necks in cement?
Get more cement.
California is like a bowl of cereal. Take out the fruit and nuts, and all that is left are the flakes.
California sucks so much, the trees in Arizona and Nevada lean west.
So easy to bash CA and we do have more than our share worthy there of.
This was a Red state, electing Regan and recalling Gray Davis (not mentioning the RINO body builder)
Once you are out of the coastal and Sacramento areas it is still very much so – even the pot growing counties are more Red that you would imagine – and despite what you hear about gun laws it is still possible to obtain a concealed carry permit.
The pendulum will swing back – we’ll see where it peaks…
Dear Videodrone:
Should D/S/Cs seize absolute power, we can no longer count on a swinging pendulum…
Dear Tom:
Heh.
Videodrone, your comment made me think of the final paragraph from the article I linked above. I hope you are right, but:
“One sometimes hears that ‘the pendulum is bound to swing back.’ But how does one know there is a pendulum at all, rather than—let us say—a snowball accelerating downhill? It is unwise to comfort oneself with metaphors. When a party is willing to push its power as far as it can go, it will keep going until it meets sufficient opposition. In the French Revolution, terror was eventually stopped by ‘Thermidor,’ and then by Napoleon. But in Russia, Stalin proclaimed ‘the intensification of the class struggle’ after the Revolution, entailing an unending series of arrests, executions, and sentences to the Gulag. What meets no resistance does not stop.”
The discussion about the pendulum, and whether or not it will ever swing back in California reminds me of another quote:
“Democracy is like a train, when you reach your destination, you get off.”
Recep Tayyip Erdogen.
The DSC has gotten off. They will take the country if they can.
Dear Advo:
What you said.
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Dear 357 Magnum:
Thanks for the link!
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